EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Effects of Government R&D Investment and Policy Ambiguity on Regional Innovation: Evidence from China

Qiong Liu () and Junhua Guo ()
Additional contact information
Qiong Liu: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Junhua Guo: Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2025, vol. 16, issue 2, No 76, 8060-8084

Abstract: Abstract The objective of this study is to assess the impact of government R&D investment (GRD) and innovation policy ambiguity (POL) as initiatives undertaken by governments, on the advancement of regional innovation. This study is conducted in the framework of the Regional Innovation System (RIS) approach, which comprises two phases: knowledge production (KNO) and innovation commercialization (COM). This research constructs a comprehensive framework to empirically explore the interrelationship of GRD, POL, KNO, and COM. The framework is subjected to rigorous analysis employing robust standard error estimation and diverse regression models, utilizing panel data including a span of ten years (2009-2019) from thirty provinces in China. The findings of this study reveal that the influence of GRD on COM is mediated by the process of KNO. Moreover, the presence of POL positively moderates the relationship between GRD and KNO, while it does not exert a moderating effect on the relationship between KNO and COM. Notably, the impact of GRD on KNO and the effect of KNO on COM are subject to the threshold effect of POL. Specifically, an intermediate level of POL demonstrates a superior capacity to enhance the efficacy of GRD on KNO and the efficiency of KNO on COM. This study significantly contributes to the understanding of the effect of government initiatives pertaining to GRD and POL on RIS in the context of a transitioning economy.

Keywords: Government R&D investment; Knowledge production; Policy ambiguity; Mediator and moderator; Threshold model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O21 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13132-024-02178-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:16:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s13132-024-02178-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13132

DOI: 10.1007/s13132-024-02178-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Knowledge Economy is currently edited by Elias G. Carayannis

More articles in Journal of the Knowledge Economy from Springer, Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-06-27
Handle: RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:16:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s13132-024-02178-3